At the SACA headquarters at Hutt Road, Adelaide, 8 pairs contested the SA President’s trophy. Clear winners by Sunday lunchtime were the pairing of Leah O’Neill from Mt Gambier and Philip Brown from Kew, Victoria. The pair had been undefeated throughout the competition. Leah’s accuracy as an experienced AC player who has played for state teams paired well with Philip’s skills and sound strategic understanding of Gateball. Runners up were John and Penny Park from Lithgow, NSW.

Players from Hyde Park, Woodville and Mt Gambier constituted the South Australian contingent at the competition. Both Woodville and Hyde Park hold weekly playing sessions and pairs from both clubs played skillfully and achieved some good wins. Mt Gambier have recently become re-enthused and return home intending to encourage others to play more Gateball.

Unfortunately, on Sunday, one of the Hyde Park pairings had to withdraw from the competition because of sickness. Rather than using the recently posted Gateball Australia default forfeit procedure, it was decided to delete all previous games by this pair from the scoring records.

On both afternoons some short courses were conducted. On Saturday afternoon 4 existing coaches of other codes of mallet sports completed the Gateball endorsement. Another group were introduced to draft level 2 coaching materials for gateball and tried their hand at the draft level 2 skills card which is available to all on this website. On Sunday a rather tired group were briefed on how to become a referee. They were left with self help materials which the state’s only existing referee, Geoff Crook, will hopefully be able to use to support and encourage others in becoming referees.

Graeme Thomas made a great job of organising the competition and his efforts were appreciated by all. Graeme recently resigned from his position on the ACA board, where, as well as being the Hon. Sec., he has been a committed and effective advocate for Gateball over the past few years. He was thanked by the National Coordinator for his efforts and a small presentation was made.

The Lithgow competition this year was the last on the old lawns. The grant to upgrade the facilities will see future events have the use of 3 gateball courts. The Lithgow/Blue Mountains competition is the longest running open CNSW Club Gateball Competition and 2020 will hopefully be a celebratory 10th!

The 2019 competition was played in  cooler weather than previous year at Lithgow but clashed with popular croquet competitions. Held shortly before Canberra’s Tavender Trophy and close to the Victorian State Championships, the number of participants was reduced.

Given the smaller numbers, Lithgow needed to be innovative with the format of the competition.

A round robin between four teams takes three rounds and referees are not possible. The club decided to include only a single round robin for the 4 teams on Sunday. Teams winning one of these games won two points per game.

For the rest of the comp each team split in two halves: A and B. Players were permanently assigned to a half – no switching mid comp

As a result there were 8 half teams. Each half team played all the other half teams, except the other half of their own team. As a result, each half team played 6 games. In contrast to the full team games, the winner of a half team game won one point towards their team total. This format ensured games were refereed.

After all the half team games had been played, Torpedoes and Epstars had both compiled 7 points while Lightning were close on 6. Torpedos pair, Judy and Ruth from the Torpedos had played outstandingly well to win all their half team games.

Both the Torpedoes and Lightning won their first two full team games leaving them on 11 and 10 points respectively. With two points up for grabs in the final round the game between the Torpedos and Lightning was essentially a final. Somewhat of an anticlimax, the last game did not produce the standard of play that both teams had been able to demonstrate previously. Lightning won the game and event after number 9, Robyn clinched the win with an agari in the last 5 minutes to secure a 2 point win.

Thunder and Epstars had not won a game in the team round robin and tussled in the final game which Thunder won on countback.

While results are posted on gateball scores as usual, this table tabulates the combined result for the full team and half team blocks

Competitors were delighted with a visit from previous club president, Cindy, partner Steve and youngsters Beth (now known as Eliza)  and Paul. Lithgow still claims to be the only club at which its President gave birth while in office! Beat that!

A short refereeing workshop was held before play on Saturday. The intricacies of ‘Start Stroking’ were discussed. A few misconceptions were clarified. The diagram and wording on pages 69 to 74 of the 2015 rulebook  were the most useful reference. Referee reaccreditation cards for 2019 werealso distributed. Robyn Hayes of Lithgow and Helen Chalmers of the Torpedos also completed their referee assessment. Thanks to you both for taking on the challenge.